Apple confirmed Tuesday its intentions to open a brand new research and development center in Japan, following comments made by the country’s prime minister Abe Shinzo recently. ”We’re excited to expand our operations in Japan with a new technical development center in Yokohama which will create dozens of new jobs,” Apple said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. According to a separate report from Reuters, it will be one of the largest R&D facilities of its kind in the area, though just how many employees Apple will staff at the location remains unclear.
Nearly two years ago, in January of 2013, Apple revealed that it spent $1 billion on research and development during the December quarter, and that sort of spending isn’t uncommon. As we see from plenty of the patents we publish on the site, Apple is constantly spending money to research new technologies and ideas that may one day be sold to the public. Some of that spending goes into advancements into current products, like Touch ID, and into future developments, like the Apple Watch that will launch in early next year.
R&D is crucial to the survival of any company, particularly as technology advances quicker and quicker, and as competitors work to develop and sell new ideas and products to the public. What sort of fruits will this new facility bear? We likely won’t know for many years.